[TheOtherHobbes]

It's not computer science. It is computer literacy.

Most people who come out of a CS course will go on to become developers, not academics. The course topics are standard domain knowledge for anyone who builds software - not because of specific tools, but because of the concept that scripting and automation tools exist to make development easier.

There is no sense in which being aware of these topics will make you less effective as an academic computer scientist, if that's what you want to be.

[type0]

Also it's good to get both academics and developers to use similar tools to ease collaboration.